


Brick by Brick

by orphan_account



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: dont look at me i was crying while i wrote this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-12
Updated: 2014-10-12
Packaged: 2018-02-20 20:06:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2441333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A glimpse into Kei’s loss of self and his journey to find something of his life again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brick by Brick

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this on a plane ok i think it took me like half an hour total and i was sobbing my eyes out for a good fifteen minutes of it
> 
> i feel so bad for the people stuck next to me

The earliest memory he had was of his brother. Akiteru would pick him up, hands placed firmly under his arms, and whirl him around until he was so dizzy he couldn’t walk.

He was five.

He remembered volleyballs, the rhythmic _bang-bang-slap bang-bang-slap_ of the leather hitting the floor, then the wall, then Akiteru’s hand. Kei would sit in the corner of the room, drawing dinosaurs on scrap sheets of paper while Akiteru watched television and tossed around his ball.

He was five.

He had a lot of memories from when he was five, memories of his mother making strawberry cake and of Akiteru coming home from school with red hands and a sweaty brow and a smile on his face. He remembered the first time Akiteru taught him to receive a volleyball, how he showed Kei how to press his fists together and angle his soft forearms so that the ball would go straight up instead of off to the side. He remembered Akiteru sitting down with him at his little whiteboard, drawing out diagrams of plays and writing out the names of positions. He remembered the first time Akiteru taught him to block, how he smiled and laughed his congratulations when Kei successfully knocked his spike off the little makeshift court in their backyard.

Akiteru was his constant, his lifeline in the tumbling world that Tsukishima Kei found himself in. It was Akiteru who picked him up when he was hurt or upset, it was Akiteru who would coax his competitive spirit out into the open, it was Akiteru that taught him to love volleyball.

And then it all came crashing down.

Kei never really trusted anyone after he discovered his brother’s secret, least of all himself. If Akiteru was wrong - Akiteru, who he had based his whole life around, who he had strived to emulate with every fiber of his being - then what on earth was he? Not the brother of Karasuno’s ace, that’s for sure.

He didn’t grow to hate, like some would have. Oh, there were chances for him to learn hate; he could hate Akiteru for lying to him for so long, he could hate the so-called “Little Giant” for snatching his brother’s position as ace out from underneath him, he could hate volleyball itself for worming its way into its heart and poisoning him. But Tsukishima Kei hated none of those things. Instead, he grew apathetic, which may even have been worse.

Kei stopped caring, completely and wholly. He watched as his brother went on to play volleyball at his university, fazed by his defeat in high school but slowly building himself back up. He looked on as Akiteru worked to better himself, hours upon hours upon days of frustration and tears and curses all leading to a breaking point, where his brother simply accepted the fact that he would never be as good as the Little Giant. It broke Kei, in a way, just as much as it had broken Akiteru. Seeing all of Akiteru’s hurt, all of his failure, Kei decided that it wasn’t worth it. With that decision planted firmly in his mind, he adopted the ‘hard work hardly works’ mindset that he would carry with him into high school.

Kei took his brother’s place at Karasuno, in his own time, continuing to play volleyball because even if he didn’t care about it, it was all that he knew. Tadashi was his shadow, his one solace among the days filled with things he just couldn’t be bothered to try for. And of course, Tadashi followed him onto the court as well.

The first day of club activities, Kei was met with the words he had least wished to hear.

“I’ll be the next Little Giant! You’ll see!”

_Little Giant._

The name that embodied everything that had broken Kei so many years ago now rang in his ears, beating against his brain incessantly in a crushing mantra of _Akiteru, failure, Akiteru, defeat, Akiteru._ He schooled his face into his usual impassive gaze as he snuck up behind the energetic boy that claimed the title of Little Giant, stealing the volleyball out from the thin air where it had waited for his spike.

_They must be the other two first-years._

Kei recognized Kageyama, the renowned “King of the Court,” who was known for his tyrannical grip on any and all players that dared to stand on his side of the court. Kei knew he was a genius, just like the Little Giant of old. He couldn’t stand geniuses. To Kei, they were oppressive and unfair, stealing the spotlight from those who deserved it, those who worked hard and spilled sweat and blood for what they wanted. The other first-year was new, though, and Kei opted to ignore him rather than face the one who claimed to carry on the legacy of his brother’s ruin.

The 3-on-3 match came and went, and Kei forced himself not to care about what he was doing. Caring would mean hurt later on, when he was inevitably benched in favor of stronger, more experienced players. He refused to give his all at practices, despite what Tadashi and Daichi would say. He refused to acknowledge the near-constant shouts of “I’ll be the next Little Giant!” and “I’m just like the Little Giant!” that always came from Hinata after a successful play. Tsukishima told himself he didn’t care, he told himself the rest of the team knew, and so he began to doubt he’d ever get a position on the court. But he was taller than the rest of them, and they needed that, and Kei struggled to quash the pride that swelled in his chest when he was announced a starting player for the first practice match.

At Aoba Johsai, Kei met his brother. Not literally, of course, but he knew similarities when he saw them. Oikawa Tooru was no genius, even Kei could tell in the short amount of time he was on the court with the setter, but he was _good_. It was obvious, even to Kei - _especially_ to Kei; he knew the signs, had seen them in Akiteru - that Oikawa had poured his heart and soul into surpassing the genius that stood before him. The genius in question didn’t take the form of the Little Giant, though. This time around, the genius was Kageyama Tobio himself. Tsukishima began to resent him after that first game.

His assumptions were confirmed at preliminaries, when he was finally on the court with Oikawa for a full game. Oikawa had the soul of Akiteru, albeit more fiery and less willing to accept defeat. The difference between them, though, was that Oikawa had managed to work and surpass his opponent where Akiteru had simply laid down and admitted he would never be good enough. The day they lost to Seijoh was the first day that Kei began to doubt his mindset.

But it was too late already; they had been knocked out of preliminaries, and Kei felt the crushing disappointment that came with the loss.

Tadashi had grown, though Kei hadn’t noticed it in his haze of disillusion. As he stood there before Kei, hands fisted tight in Kei’s practice t-shirt, Kei’s facade threatened to crack and crumble.

_What more do you need than pride?_

Kei supposed his brother had pondered that quite a few times over the years, as he picked himself up and broke down and picked himself back up again in a vicious cycle that left him a bit more battered every time. He supposed Tadashi was right, in a way. What more did he need than pride? Kei remembered the pride that he had smothered every time he stepped on the court, every time he faced down an opponent, every time he sent a spike reeling back onto the other side of the net. He wondered just why he had ever stopped caring in the first place.

Bokuto and Kuroo approached him after practice again that day, hounding him for practice just like they had every other day of the training camp. Tadashi’s words echoed in his head.

_Motivation? What more do you need than pride?_

Kei had no motivation. He hadn’t known the pull of motivation since the day he saw Akiteru cheering on the ace that had robbed him of his position on the court.

Pride, though, was a different thing altogether. He could work with pride. If Tadashi was right, it would be enough.

Kei thought of Akiteru, of the losses he had suffered over the years. He thought of the sight of his brother crying, cursing volleyball for drawing him in and cursing himself for failing over and over and over. He thought of how his brother still managed to play at his university, how he had found a fine line of balance between failure and determination and stayed there. He thought of how his brother had continued to love volleyball, even long after Kei himself had stopped.

Kei began to care again.

**Author's Note:**

> this was rly short sorry about that omg


End file.
